


when all the world's asleep

by from



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Baking, Feeding, M/M, Niall Horan & Liam Payne Friendship, Partial Nudity, Pining, RPF, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 14:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4669451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/from/pseuds/from
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry bakes in his underpants, Niall pines, Liam lends clothes and gravitas, and Louis and Zayn are the only ones getting any sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when all the world's asleep

**Author's Note:**

> fic inspired by [this](http://kittenstyles.tumblr.com/post/100586677713/iggycat-someone-needs-to-write-a-the-fire) and fixed on 30.08.15
> 
> title from Florence + The Machine’s _Hiding_ , which I thought contained the lines ‘up again all night this week / baking things that I should keep’ but actually didn’t

It’s three a.m. and Niall is running in place, eyes stinging in the wind blowing down from the river. He’s only in his sleep shorts, trainers, and a scarf Liam threw around his neck on their way out. Under his crossed arms, his nipples feel like they’re about to fall off. 

Everyone else is across the street at the assembly point, or whatever has become the assembly point now that they’re all standing there, huddling in groups. There’s no campus security yet that he can see to make it official or unofficial. It’s probably because there’s no actual fire even though the alarm has been blaring through their residence block long enough that the right number of people seems to be outside. 

He doesn’t know where Liam’s gone to. He remembers being pulled out of bed and shuttled away from their smoky flat, down the crowded emergency stairwell, Liam’s voice in his ear telling him it’s all right, just keep moving. 

A few stragglers are coming out of the brightly lit foyer. From where he’s standing by the beech trees, he can see their faces: annoyed, angry, sleepy, confused. One of them is going very slowly, head down, focused on what looks like a baking tray laden with pasties. He’s got oven mitts on and not much else, which makes Niall feel the cold even more. It’s like he’s getting sympathetic chills. He should probably stay away, but. There’s very little good in his life right now except the meaty smell of the pasties: warm, spicy, smoky. 

Niall breaks into a jog toward them. “Need a hand?”

“Oh, thanks,” the pasty-bearer says, looking up, “but no, thank you. It’s really hot still and you don’t have mitts on.”

 _But you’re only in your underpants so I win_ , Niall’s brain wants to say. Of course, because it’s Harry from next door he’s talking to, and Harry’s really fit, and naked, and Niall’s never had a proper thought in his presence even when he’s been covered up from head to toe. 

“Can you make it across the street? I think we’re meant to go there,” Niall tells him. He can see a foursome in reflective vests coming out of a security car that’s just arrived. He doesn’t know how they didn’t blind one another when they opened the doors and the lights came on in the car. 

Not a single proper thought.

“Um, I think so? But I don’t know. I’m shaking too hard. ‘S freezing out here.”

Niall has stared at Harry a lot in the past two years. He knows that in winter it’s sometimes too hard to see anything but Harry’s curls peeking out of his beanie because he’s completely bundled up. “Here,” Niall says, and takes off his scarf so he can wrap it around Harry’s neck and over his broad shoulders, walking around him to do it from the back because the tray of beautiful pasties is in the way. Harry’s body feels very, very cold when Niall accidentally brushes against it. He wants to lean in and cover it with his own.

“Thank you,” Harry says, still shivering but with a smile on his face. Niall really likes Harry’s smile even though he probably shouldn’t. It’s the sort that fucks you up while making you feel like that’s a kind thing to do to you. 

“Across the street, lads,” someone calls out to them, “please. For your own safety.”

They don’t argue. Niall follows Harry carefully, ready to save all the pasties he can catch.

“Niall!” Liam pops out of the crowd to meet them before they get to the pavement on the other side. He’s fully dressed and he’s got a pile of clothes in his arms. The next time Louis accuses Liam of being a superhero or spook-in-training, Niall won’t stop him. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you.” Liam looks over at Harry. “Hiya, mate. Those look good.”

Niall does not wait for the inevitable unsubtle stare that Liam’s going to give him because his crush is standing there basically naked with a tray of freshly-baked pasties. Liam knows it’s like Niall’s most sacred daydreams come true, except for the part where all their nipples are frozen. “What you got here?” Niall asks, shoving his hands into Liam’s pile of clothes. Jesus. It feels great just to have his fingers out of the wind.

“Laundry. Had some in the dryers downstairs,” Liam grinned as Niall grabs a shirt to put on.

Niall is already getting his arms through another one of Liam’s tops when he hears Harry ask: “C-c-could I borrow something too?” 

“Yeah, ‘course you can,” Liam says. “Niall, help him.”

Niall’s only just got his head through the shirt, but he can see what needs doing. “Someone has to hold on to the pasties,” he says, reaching for the tray. It’s hot, but only soup hot.

Liam laughs. “Don't give them to him! He’ll have them all down his throat before you're done covering up.”

“Shut up,” Niall says to Liam. “There’s a half dozen. I can’t eat that fast.” 

“You’re w-w-welcome to eat them,” Harry says, taking off the oven mitts. “I have another batch cooking in my mate’s flat upstairs.”

“You do?” Niall knows he’s not supposed to talk with his mouth full but Harry and Harry’s pasties are amazing. 

“Yeah.” Harry sighs as he sinks into Liam’s track bottoms. “Curried ones. Hope they’ll let us back in before they’re done baking.”

Niall feels a soft kick from Liam’s direction. “Oh, sorry, Li.” He thrusts a pasty Liam’s way. “Want one? I can hold it for ya.” 

“Where’s your mate, Harry?” Liam asks, ignoring the golden flaky goodness. 

“Uh, I don’t know. He can sleep through anything. He’s probably still in bed.”

Liam mutters something that sounds like _smoke inhalation_ and _murder by pasty_. Before Niall can ask him, Liam has already wandered off, clutching the oven mitts, a couple of pairs of red pants and a white sock. He’s going in the direction of the fire engine that’s just come to a perfunctory dead stop in front of the residence hall and he likes fire engines almost as much as Niall likes hot, meaty things so Niall lets him go.

“This is really good,” he says, turning to Harry.

Harry’s eyes are twinkling a bit, like when he’s checked his pigeon hole outside the hall office and found something there that’s not a flyer. “Yeah? ‘M glad you think so.”

“’S the truth,” Niall says, thinking he could go for another. “I could eat the whole tray.”

“I know,” Harry says. He’s busy wrapping one of Liam’s shirts around his head and a sleeve has fallen out of the twist so Niall can’t really see his face. “I’ve seen you eat before. I mean, just like, around the SU. You get two samosas with every pint.” 

Niall feels his own face heat up. So Harry does know Niall exists, but only as _that guy who stuffs his face in the SU bar_. 

“Wish you could try them properly. They’re probably hard and weird now,” Harry says, still busy wrapping himself up. 

“Nah. They’re still warm on the inside,” Niall tells him. “You get about fifteen minutes with pasties. I eat ‘em when I’m at the football and the second one’s always like this and it’s still good every time.”

Harry laughs, and it’s all throaty and crackly. “I’ll take your word for it, Niall.” 

“Yeah, well,” Niall starts, but there’s nothing more to say about that. When Harry steps toward him, he passes the tray back into Harry’s open arms.

“Maybe these will cheer people up,” Harry says, waving at some grumpy first-years. 

“Yeah, maybe.” At least they’ve got coats on and their phones with them, Niall thinks. They’ve probably also got photos of Harry in his pants from earlier.

“Don’t you want another one?” He turns and Harry is holding up a pasty to his mouth. 

“No, I’m fine,” Niall says, stepping aside. He just wants to go back in now, wants to get in his bed, turn the lights off, and put these moments away, separate the embarrassing bits so he’ll have forgot about them tomorrow and be back to catching glimpses of Harry going in and out of the building. 

Harry looks at him, blinking slowly. “Okay.” 

Niall only feels a little bit sorry when he goes.

#

In the morning, he hears from Liam that there was no fire. It was just a lot of smoke coming out of one of the flats and through the shared vents on their side of the building because of something in the oven. The guy whose flat it was didn’t even know about it because he had his room door sealed tight from the inside with a towel.

“There’s no way that wasn’t Harry Styles’ bloody curried pasties. No way,” Louis says, bright-eyed and indignant on their behalf since he slept soundly in his girlfriend’s houseboat and missed all the drama. “And I can’t believe Zayn was holding and didn’t tell me!”

“’S that Harry’s friend? You know him?” Niall stares at Louis. “How come you never told me you knew him?”

“Was I supposed to?” Louis replies. “Harry’s lived next door for two years and you never talked to him until last night. How was I supposed to know you’d want to talk to his friend?” 

Liam gets on the sofa between them, ostensibly to tie his shoelaces, but maybe also to try and have a good day, the crinkles on his forehead seem to say.

“Christ, Liam,” Louis says, jostling Liam into Niall. “It’s a two-seater! Can’t you tell from the number of cushions and your arse on my thigh?”

#

On their way to tutorials, Liam tells Niall he hopes Niall will go get his clothes back from Harry because Liam doesn’t know if he can stop himself from giving Harry a piece of his mind about the three a.m. bake-off practice.

Niall likes having a proper reason for talking to Harry, but Liam wants his stuff back before the weekend and Niall’s not sure he can do it so soon. He wants Harry to know he does do more than drink and stuff his face before they talk again. Harry’s never even heard him play the guitar or do impressions. Well, maybe he has heard the impressions because he’s seen Niall drink and past three pints, there’s really no stopping them. Maybe Harry thinks they’re shite. 

He’s mulling it over in the company of a pint of pilsner and two sausage rolls at the SU bar when he feels a hand on his shoulder. 

“Hey.”

 _Jesus._ “Hey, Harry. How are ya?” How Harry sees him is probably a lost cause. There’s no mistaking the two empty wrappers in front of him.

“Good. Yourself?” Harry is in a shearling coat and a pair of high-tops and skinny jeans, a look Niall has enthusiastically wanked to before but feels like too many clothes on him now that Niall has seen him in only underpants and oven mitts. He’s also got what is clearly a girls’ blouse tied around his curls, like an athlete’s crown. Niall is starting to wonder if Harry is like a bag of fireworks you accidentally set off and still don’t want to run away from.

“Good,” Niall says. He gestures to the chair next to his. “’S free if you want it.”

“Sorry. Can’t. I have lecture in a minute,” Harry says. “Just wanted to tell you I’ve washed your flatmate’s clothes. So, um,” he leans in, and Niall can see his own grey scarf hanging loosely under the shearling, “come by later and get them?” 

Oh. _Oh._ Niall looks away, feeling weird all over. Harry’s hand is still on his shoulder, the thumb hot on the naked skin of his neck. He was sure he wanted this, but now he thinks he wants them to roll it back a bit, because it feels like a far fall from up here. 

“I can do that,” he says, taking a pull from his pint.

“Around ten? I’ve got circus training tonight, but I can make a late supper.”

“You’ve got what tonight?” Harry is smiling now, Niall can feel it. “Er, yeah, actually, ten’s fine.” He knows about Harry’s late suppers. They usually end in Liam running away from his side of the flat and straight into Niall’s bedroom because the fucking next door is too loud. “Ten’s great,” he adds, returning Harry’s gaze.

Niall finishes his pint and goes to have a wander in Boots. Harry bakes at fucking three a.m., wears other people’s shirts on his head, and is doing circus training on top of uni work. Niall wishes he knew what all of that says about the flavour of lube Harry prefers.

~

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I’m new to the 1D fandom. I felt bad asking because I don’t know anyone yet so this fic did not go through beta or picking - just me reading it many times, tinkering, and googling possible messes. If you spot(ted) something, please let me know! You can also find me [on Tumblr](http://fromward.tumblr.com). Thanks for reading. <3


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